Teaching vocabulary

Stages and ways of teaching vocabulary

• Stage I is related to the presentation of a new vocabulary. The aim is to introduce a new word and disclose the meaning of each word. Ways and techniques to convey the meaning of a word are:
• Direct way
• dictionaries - used in conveying the meaning of a word;
• synonyms- items that mean the same, or nearly the same; for example, clever, smart may serve as synonyms of intelligent;
• antonyms- items that mean the opposite; rich is an antonym of poor;
• hyponyms - items that serve as specific examples of a general concept; dog. lion, mouse are hyponyms of animal;

morphological analysis (word building) - You may wish to teach the common prefixes and suffixes: for example, it learners know the meaning of sub-, un- and -able, this will help them guess the meanings of words like substandard, ungrateful and untranslatable. contextual guessing - understanding the meaning through the context, or previous experience;

• morphological analysis (word building) - You may wish to teach the common prefixes and suffixes: for example, it learners know the meaning of sub-, un- and -able, this will help them guess the meanings of words like substandard, ungrateful and untranslatable. contextual guessing - understanding the meaning through the context, or previous experience;
• definitions - explanation of meaning in English with the words familiar for learners;
• examples - situational and interesting information which can motivate learners;
• interpretation - if there is no equivalent in the native language;
• matching - synonyms, antonyms;
• analysis of the structure - familiar components of the word;
• making list of family words - finding the meaning of the general word via familiar words;
• familiar or famous (international) words.

Visual

• demonstration of school paraphernalia or drawings on the black board (realia);
• illustration material-pictures / objects;
• models;
• demonstration of movements, mime, body language;
• pictograms, pictures, schemes.

Translation

• giving an equivalent;
• translation-interpretation;
• comparing a foreign word to the native language word

The choice of a successful way of semantization depends on the following factors:

• whether the word belongs to the active (productive) or passive (receptive) vocabulary minimum;
• on the stage of learning: at the junior level - visual techniques, speech-patterns, translation; at the intermediate level - synonyms, antonyms, word-building analysis; at the senior level - context, definitions;
• on the level of the language performance of the learners in a certain stage of education;
• on the qualitative characteristics of a word.

Stage II - drilling, its aim is to create or form the stereotypes of usage of a new word.

• Stage II - drilling, its aim is to create or form the stereotypes of usage of a new word.
• Stage III - situational (communicative practice) aimed to developing or improving the vocabulary subskills in the aspect of using vocabulary in the speech.
• People can communicate using 400-500 words. An educated person uses 3000-5000 words to express his ideas in the written and spoken forms of speech. A person should know more than 3000- 5000 words for reading and listening. Famous writers and poets use 20-25 thousand words in their works.